For your robot-building needs, $45 BeagleBone Linux PC goes on sale

The market for cheap single-board computers is becoming one of the most surprisingly competitive spaces in the tech industry. On the heels of the million-selling Raspberry Pi, a variety of companies and small groups started creating their own tiny computers for programmers and hobbyists.

Today we have a new entrant that may provide the best bang for the buck for many types of users. It's called the BeagleBone Black and it's the latest in the line of "Beagle" devices that first appeared in 2008, courtesy of Texas Instruments. On sale now for $45, BeagleBone Black sports a 1GHz Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 processor from Texas Instruments, up from the 720MHz processor used in the previous $90 BeagleBone released in 2011. (Edit: While the purchase link is live, the device may not be available until tomorrow morning. It will also be available at BeagleBoard.org/buy.)

Beagle's "open" hardware philosophy means all of the chips and designs are available to the public, so anyone with the right equipment and knowledge could make their own.

Using an ARMv7 processor instead of the Pi's ARMv6 one, BeagleBone can run Ubuntu or other Linux distributions as well as Android. It also provides more inputs and outputs than the Pi for connecting to sensors and other devices needed to build robots and electronics projects. The BeagleBone Black has significantly more inputs and outputs than an Arduino Uno, and similar numbers as the newer Arduino Due.

"This has a lot more I/Os than an Arduino Uno would have," BeagleBoard.org co-founder Jason Kridner told Ars. "It's a full gigaherz Linux desktop computer, but it has all the I/O capabilities you'd have in a typical microcontroller. It really bridges that gap, combining those two worlds together."

Beagle has a thriving development community. There are more than 30 "capes," or plug-in boards compatible with the BeagleBone Black. These allow the device to connect to 3D printers, DMX lighting controllers, a Geiger counter, a telerobotic submarine, LCD touch screens, and more.

Beagle runs semi-independently of Texas Instruments, which sponsors the project with technology and its employees' time. Kridner is a TI employee, but spends nearly all of his time on Beagle projects.

100,000 boards will be made in the first production run of BeagleBone Black. The previous generation sold about 50,000 to 60,000 units "at twice the cost and less performance," Kridner said. He has been amazed by what developers have done with Beagle products so far, and figures it can only get better with the BeagleBone Black.

"You can build 3D printers, you can build rovers, you can build drones, you can build art projects, street lighting," Kridner said. Beagle users are "doing software-defined radio, inspecting the spectrum and wardriving, and searching for faults in the wireless communications systems. I cannot possibly keep up with what everybody's doing with this board."

The processing power and price aren't the only reasons Kridner thinks BeagleBone Black will inspire even greater heights of hacking. The board will be more user-friendly than the previous version, with a MicroHDMI hookup, a pre-installed Linux distribution, and an upgraded Web interface for controlling Arduino-like functionality.

Here's an at-a-glance look at the BeagleBone Black's specs (click for a larger view):

Although BeagleBone Black costs $10 more than a Raspberry Pi, it comes with a power supply and network cable whereas the Pi does not. (UPDATE: the people behind BeagleBone told us the product would come with a power supply, it turns out the actual shipments do not include one.) BeagleBone Black has 2GB of on-board storage that's pre-installed with Ångström Linux, and the MicroSD slot can be used for additional storage or to boot another operating system. BeagleBone Black upgrades the RAM over the previous version from 256MB of DDR2 memory to 512MB of DDR3L memory.

A MicroHDMI slot allows direct connections to TVs or monitors, whereas the previous version required users to develop to the board from another computer, or hook up an add-on board allowing video capability.

"If you want to do things like motor control, to drive a motor, tell it to go one direction or another direction, or how fast to go, that's typically done with a pulse-width modulator," Kridner said.

Users can program all these different inputs from a convenient Web browser interface that's accessible when you plug the BeagleBone into a Windows, Linux, or Mac computer. The browser interface features BoneScript, "a node.js-based language specifically optimized for the Beagle family and featuring familiar Arduino function."

This is designed to make Arduino-like functionality as easy as possible:

This isn't the first version of BoneScript, but it now has new tutorials to help people learn to drive motors and wire up sensors.

"We've tried to learn a lot of the lessons [from Arduino]," Kridner said. "They have these really simple functions. If I want to set a pin high, it's digital write, pin number and high. If you want to set a pulse-width modulator, it's analog write and the frequency that you want to write at, what the duty cycle is. ... We mimic these function calls that Arduino has, but we put it in a Javascript webpage environment. I actually have an interactive editor directly in my browser where I can experiment with utilizing these Arduino-like functions, and click run, and those run and I can see the output on the pins. I can learn to read sensors."

Kridner said BeagleBone Black also comes pre-loaded a C compiler, multimedia libraries, a GUI creation library with the Qt framework, and other development tools.

The possibilities are nearly endless.

"I can use Python, I can use C, I can use Perl, all the things I'm familiar with in a desktop computing environment," Kridner said. "If I want to have a tweeting robot that chases the cat around all day, I can make that."

Promoted Comments

As an old dude that grew up a regular at the local Radio Shack and Heathkit stores, I think this is freaking awesome. The evolution is pretty cool.

Back in the early 80's, I built special purpose computers out of TRS-80 Color Computers and Apple II's, typically for industrial use; fluid tank monitors and such. Needless to say, they were huge, crude, primitive beasts.

Stuff like the Beaglebone makes me want to clean off the workbench again and play.

"Programmable Real-time Unit" - basically some dedicated hardware for monitoring the GPIO pins and responding to them much more quickly than you can in some code running on the CPU. I don't know how capable it is as I didn't spend the $90 on a current-gen Bone, but I'm looking forward to seeing how much microcontroller or PLC-style work it can be made to do.

78 Reader Comments

I'm personally much more excited about Udoo ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/435 ... ngle-board ) as it's got both full Arduino-compatibility and enough grunt to run even quite demanding Linux-applications, lots of connectivity and it still doesn't cost *that* much more than this. Alas, perhaps this BeagleBone is more suitable for highly specialized workloads.

Damn, you couldn't have waited a couple days before posting this article? The thing won't even officially be available until tomorrow, which is presumably why Newark is showing zero availability just yet.

WereCatf's UDOO quad has sata support. Of course that'll set you back 3 BeagleBones, but it's definitely a nice feature.

That's exactly one of the reasons why I'm so interested in it. A small SSD or similar attached via the SATA - port and a powerful 4-core SoC with Arduino handling input of all kinds of sensory data -- the possibilities are numerous.

WereCatf's UDOO quad has sata support. Of course that'll set you back 3 BeagleBones, but it's definitely a nice feature.

That's exactly one of the reasons why I'm so interested in it. A small SSD or similar attached via the SATA - port and a powerful 4-core SoC with Arduino handling input of all kinds of sensory data -- the possibilities are numerous.

You would think these would start coming with more on-board storage. I wouldn't take up much space to include a 32 or 64 GB SSD chip. However, given that these mini computers are often made for a multitude of reasons, perhaps this wouldn't be a selling point for the intended audience. The problem with a SATA drive would be power, and right now these computers don't exactly support robust PSUs.

WereCatf's UDOO quad has sata support. Of course that'll set you back 3 BeagleBones, but it's definitely a nice feature.

That's exactly one of the reasons why I'm so interested in it. A small SSD or similar attached via the SATA - port and a powerful 4-core SoC with Arduino handling input of all kinds of sensory data -- the possibilities are numerous.

Unless you need really high data rates an external USB drive should work great. You will probably need a powered drive or hub though.

You would think these would start coming with more on-board storage. I wouldn't take up much space to include a 32 or 64 GB SSD chip. However, given that these mini computers are often made for a multitude of reasons, perhaps this wouldn't be a selling point for the intended audience. The problem with a SATA drive would be power, and right now these computers don't exactly support robust PSUs.

Soldering so much storage on the thing would increase the cost. Not much, but still. Also, it would make it much harder to replace the storage if it ever wore out. The whole idea with making storage and such removeable is customizability to your specific workload.

Also, I don't see the problem with SATA-drive power requirements. The maximum load would be 12V * 3 pins rated at 1.5A. That's perfectly doable without requiring "robust PSUs."

Unless you need really high data rates an external USB drive should work great. You will probably need a powered drive or hub though.

My Pandaboard can power a 2.5" laptop HDD just fine over USB even without a powered USB-hub. The problem is the poor performance of the USB2.0 - subsystem, what with slow speeds and high tax on the CPU.

Of course, I'm not saying most people looking for these kinds of boards would have any use for a SATA-port. But still, we do exist, a niche inside a niche

Soldering so much storage on the thing would increase the cost. Not much, but still. Also, it would make it much harder to replace the storage if it ever wore out. The whole idea with making storage and such removeable is customizability to your specific workload.

That's true, I didn't consider replace-ability as an issue. I guess I'm not the target consumer for one of these computers, although I do think they are awesome!

I'm personally much more excited about Udoo ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/435 ... ngle-board ) as it's got both full Arduino-compatibility and enough grunt to run even quite demanding Linux-applications, lots of connectivity and it still doesn't cost *that* much more than this. Alas, perhaps this BeagleBone is more suitable for highly specialized workloads.

I totally understand what they mean, but there's no such thing as full Arduino-compatiblity - the UDOO is compatible with an Arduino DUE, which is mostly compatible with AVR-based Arduino Mega and like devices.

I totally understand what they mean, but there's no such thing as full Arduino-compatiblity - the UDOO is compatible with an Arduino DUE, which is mostly compatible with AVR-based Arduino Mega and like devices.

Well, okay, I should have been more precise about how I word the thing. My apologies.

WereCatf's UDOO quad has sata support. Of course that'll set you back 3 BeagleBones, but it's definitely a nice feature.

That's exactly one of the reasons why I'm so interested in it. A small SSD or similar attached via the SATA - port and a powerful 4-core SoC with Arduino handling input of all kinds of sensory data -- the possibilities are numerous.

Unless you need really high data rates an external USB drive should work great. You will probably need a powered drive or hub though.

The problem is USB hubs are notoriously unreliable. Just check out Newegg customer feedback if you don't believe me.

I've have the Beagleboard XM. It has a 4 USB ports, but there is a cavaet. The USB hub chip has a bug that requires a kernel patch that not every distribution has added. Also, the ethernet isn't native, but rather is piped through the 5th USB port on the board. Not really great architecture. So the short story is what you really want is a reduced cost and improved Beagleboard XM.

As a former CMU'er, I promise you the UDOO will become a device of inhumane torture for CS/EE/ECE students. For the rest of us, this is going to be freekin' awesome, though $100+ is starting to get a little pricey.

"They have these really simple functions. If I want to set a pin high, it's digital right, pin number and high. If you want to set a pulse-width modulator, it's analog right and the frequency that you want to write at, what the duty cycle is."

After spending a few minutes trying to parse this sentence, I think you got bit by a homophone. (Should be "write".)

The great thing about the Cortex-A8 (Beaglebone) architecture compared to the ARMv6 (RaspberryPi) is that the A8 NEON floating point unit performs far better and has far better compiler support than the ARMv6 VFP unit.

"They have these really simple functions. If I want to set a pin high, it's digital right, pin number and high. If you want to set a pulse-width modulator, it's analog right and the frequency that you want to write at, what the duty cycle is."

After spending a few minutes trying to parse this sentence, I think you got bit by a homophone. (Should be "write".)

The great thing about the Cortex-A8 (Beaglebone) architecture compared to the ARMv6 (RaspberryPi) is that the A8 NEON floating point unit performs far better and has far better compiler support than the ARMv6 VFP unit.

The RPi (ARM11 family and ARMv6 architecture in ARM's wonderfully clear and intuitive naming scheme) doesn't even have hardware integer division. The A8 does, and it's also a superscalar architecture that can nearly double the number of instructions executed each clock cycle. The A8 gets considerably better performance per MHz.

As an old dude that grew up a regular at the local Radio Shack and Heathkit stores, I think this is freaking awesome. The evolution is pretty cool.

Back in the early 80's, I built special purpose computers out of TRS-80 Color Computers and Apple II's, typically for industrial use; fluid tank monitors and such. Needless to say, they were huge, crude, primitive beasts.

Stuff like the Beaglebone makes me want to clean off the workbench again and play.

"Programmable Real-time Unit" - basically some dedicated hardware for monitoring the GPIO pins and responding to them much more quickly than you can in some code running on the CPU. I don't know how capable it is as I didn't spend the $90 on a current-gen Bone, but I'm looking forward to seeing how much microcontroller or PLC-style work it can be made to do.

You would think these would start coming with more on-board storage. I wouldn't take up much space to include a 32 or 64 GB SSD chip.

You might be disappointed. SSDs use large number of flash chips and a sophisticated controller to manage the flash, and let you have multiple reads and writes going on in parallel. A simple NAND flash chip on the board won't give SSD performance.

On the other hand, it would be faster than the SD card. But on the gripping hand, you're adding a high speed part and parallel data bus to the board, which takes a lot of space and design work as well as adding a not-insignificant cost to the BOM.

"Programmable Real-time Unit" - basically some dedicated hardware for monitoring the GPIO pins and responding to them much more quickly than you can in some code running on the CPU. I don't know how capable it is as I didn't spend the $90 on a current-gen Bone, but I'm looking forward to seeing how much microcontroller or PLC-style work it can be made to do.

So many people here are complaining about a lack of SATA support and/or on board fast flash storage. I am more interested in being able to net boot one of these types of systems, no SD card necessary. It would certainly require a more complex on-board BIOS-like system (rather than simply "load whatever is on that card in the slot over there").

In fact, why not throw out the SD card slot completely? Save the cost, and improve the built-in networking subsystem. Also, building and booting a whole cluster of these could be made more cheaply without that pesky SD card requirement.

This is an improvement, but we already have a quite nice A8 Cortex with double the ram, and double the flash size for the same price - The CubieBoard - http://www.cubieboard.org

I am a bit biased, I started the http://CubieForums.com site though, and am about 3/4 the way designing our own board based off the Allwinner A10 SoC that powers the Cubieboard for my own nefarious reasons.

Great to see more real competition in the small embedded space though. More choice is good!

For dumb end-users like me, the $50 Android sticks are much better value for money and time spent. I'm surprised there hasn't been an article on those yet, they're the non-DIYer counterpart to the Pi/Beagle...